Mobile Moves

Good Afternoon. If your Palworld guild was reaching 7000 pals, the latest patch should keep your save file from being corrupted as well as your breeding pals awake.

— Tim Rhyne, Derek Neville

MAIN QUEST: Going Mobile

Tencent is reportedly in the process of developing a free-to-play mobile version of Elden Ring, following Tencent's acquisition of a 16 percent stake in FromSoftware in August 2022. The move is part of Tencent's strategy to create mobile versions of popular game franchises, as they have done with PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile. Tencent also has teams working on mobile versions of Need for Speed and Assasins Creed.

Similarly, Nitro Games raises €3.5m to bring Digital Extremes’ Warframe to mobile as a free-to-play game as early as this year. Nitro Games has a history of working with the Warframe IP, as well as creating free-to-play mobile games. Warframe was originally released in 2013 as a PC game and came to consoles over the last decade.

Step Back: While taking an existing IP and creating a mobile version of it may seem like a no-brainer, especially with the rise of mobile gaming, it is not necessarily a guaranteed success. A Reuters report claims royalties of 15-20% of sales are standard in licensing IPs. The developer still has to additional fees, such as the app store fee on top of that.

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HUD

• 📈 Nintendo’s nine-month report ending December 31st has their net profits up 17.9% YoY to $9.4 billion despite hardware unit (-7.8%) and software unit (-4.7%) sales being down. A big category mover was mobile and IP-related sales (+93.4% YoY) totaling 5% of overall sales in the period.

• 💸 Carlyle Group is in advanced talks with CVC Capital Partners to sell Jagex, the parent company behind RuneScape, for a reported £900m (US$1.13bn). Carlyle purchased Jagex in 2021 for US$530 million. This will be Jagex’s sixth owner in the last decade.

• 🤝 IGN workers form the IGN Creators Guild hoping to address the “need for better diversity and representation at the company.” This move already has 87% of eligible members signed and is spurred by the layoff waves within gaming journalism.

MAJOR W

• 👀 According to a Brazilian rating board listing, the current Netflix-exclusive Valiant Hearts may be coming to consoles.

• ⚔️ Artisan Studios announced Lost Hellden for PC and consoles coming in 2025. They are working with other JRPG veterans to bring the game to life.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🩸 “The bloodletting continues” describes one individual affected by Visual Concepts Austin lays off.

• 😤 Xbox influencers are pulling support amidst the rumors of Xbox taking titles multi-platform.

CAREER CORNER

• DevQA Tester — Spearhead Games (Remote, Canada)

• Product Data Analyst — TapBlaze (Los Angeles, CA)

• Senior Game Producer, Art — Believer (Remote, US)

HIVE MIND

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